


Late Night

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s11e09 O Brother Where Art Thou, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mentions of hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:41:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5437034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam gets back from the cage, he's damaged. Dean helps him cope. But when Dean leaves him alone, Sam misses him like crazy. Little schmoopy piece about Sam and Dean having a brotherly talk after the events of the midseason finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late Night

Dean and Cas had only left a couple of hours ago, and Sam was already crawling up the walls. He itched to call them up and demand they come back, to load him up in the passenger seat and let him research, let him help, but instead, he sat in his room, staring at the TV but not paying attention to whatever mindless show was on. He felt fuzzy and tired, his eyes blinking more and more sluggishly.

Dean had been right, of course–-Sam needed more time to heal, and helping track down the very person who had gotten him stuck Back There again was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. 

Dean had stayed with him for three weeks. Three weeks of zero hunts, of zero calls to certain kings of hell. Three weeks of old movies they already knew word for word. Dean’s cooking was amazing, as usual, and Sam couldn’t help but feel guilty, that he was holding them back, that his breakdown was damaging the world and Dean, too. He felt useless and still in a tide of movement, unproductive when he was needed the most.

But thinking that he needed to get his ass in gear never stopped the nightmares.

He woke up with a hoarse, dry throat, and knew immediately that he’d woken himself up screaming. He sat up, the sweat on his chest making his shirt stick to his body. The TV was still on in the corner. He ran a shaking hand through his hair. Bile rose to the back of his mouth. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being used, like a doll, couldn’t shake the feeling of being controlled. A broken little marionette doll forced to smile and take it.

He let out a single ragged sob, clapping his hands over his mouth. His eyes scrunched up and his vision blurred, and for a brief moment he hated himself with a dark, fiery loathing, hated his body, his weakness, his life.

The phone was ringing before he knew what he was doing. Dean picked up on the second ring. “H’llo? Sam?” he asked, his voice cottony with sleep. “What’s up?”

“I just had a really bad nightmare,” Sam told him lamely. There was silence on the other end of the line, like Dean was expecting something more, but Sam was choked up and he knew if he outright asked Dean for help, he wouldn’t be able to stop the tears. He heard the sheets rustle through the phone.

“Do you want me to head back? I could make it three hours.”

“No, no. I’m… I’m okay. I just wanted to talk to you, s’all.”

Dean sighed. “You sure?”

Sam clutched the phone tighter in his hand, imagining Dean now, a couple states away, his hair mussed and sticking up, sitting up in the dark of some nondescript motel room in a worn Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He smiled despite himself, a bright punch of longing tugging at his heart. “Yeah, I’m good,” he said, his voice cracking. He hung up, flopping back on the bed and sighing.

He’d been staring up at the ceiling for a couple of minutes trying to get the feeling of cold hands on his body out of his mind when his phone started buzzing across the nightstand. He reached over and grabbed it, answering the phone with a frown and a furrowed brow. “Dean?”

“I can’t really get back to sleep,” Dean confessed, and Sam could hear a TV on in Dean’s room, too. “Thought we could talk.”

A fond smile split across Sam’s face and he nodded to himself. “Works for me,” he said quietly, and listened as Dean rumbled on about the day he’d had, the leads he was working on. Sam let Dean’s familiar, husky cadence wash over him, slowing his pulse and making him feel calm and centered. The headache he’d had was slipping away, and he had his big brother to thank.

“…which made me think of that time you stole the car to go study in the library,” Dean was saying, a chuckle in his voice. “Geek Boy Supreme, your rebellious acts were really bold, Sammy. Real at-risk youth shit.”

Sam laughed. “You were practically begging me to smoke weed back then,” he recalled, thinking of Dean’s arm slapped around his shoulder as they walked home from school together. “You started doing that again when I got back on the road with you.”

Dean let out a long exhale. “Stoned Sammy is a fucking idiot, that’s for sure.”

Sam scoffed. “Like you were any better. Do the words dented rear fender mean anything to you?”

“We promised to never mentioned that again,” Dean growled, but Sam could hear the smile in his voice. “Bitch.”

His eyes were stinging again. “Jerk.” That was all it took to plunge him in nostalgia mode, and he thought back to Dean wearing Dad’s leather jacket, to Dean’s hands cupping his face if Sam ever even got a scratch on a hunt. He remembered how in sync they were, how their bodies moved together and the casual touches meant nothing but Sam lived for them. “I miss that,” he found himself saying, “those were the best years of my life.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “Well, they’re not gone.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, sounding unconvinced to his own ears.

Dean cleared his throat. “We can bring them back, Sammy,” he murmured, making Sam’s cheeks heat up with affection.

“You promise?” he asked, his throat full.

“I promise.”

Sam rubbed at his eyes. “Good.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, listening to each other’s breathing and little movements. He heard Dean yawn and his own mouth stretched open, mirroring Dean’s. “Well, I’m gettin’ kinda tired,” Dean said, turning his TV off.

“Me too.” Sam grabbed his remote. He actually did feel sleepy, which surprised him, his bones loose and pliant, his head clear and calm and no longer bothered by whispers of the devil. “Good luck out there.”

“Once I’ve got you back, I won’t need it,” Dean said, and his confidence was contagious. “Night, Sammy.”

“Night, Dean.” He loved the familiar love he could hear in Dean’s voice, and put as much of it into his own as he could, knowing that Dean heard, that they’d said I love you in their own little way.

Less than half an hour later he was in a safe, comfortable dream, sitting in a bar with a Dean whose eyes were no longer weighed down with bitterness, whose smiles came easy at they were all directed at Sam. He dreamed of a safer world, one he would try his damndest to bring back to life.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love <3


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